PEP 569 – Python 3.8 Release Schedule | peps.python.org
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PEP 569 – Python 3.8 Release Schedule
PEP 569 – Python 3.8 Release Schedule
Author
:
Łukasz Langa <lukasz at python.org>
Status
:
Final
Type
:
Informational
Topic
:
Release
Created
:
27-Jan-2018
Python-Version
:
3.8
Table of Contents
This document describes the development and release schedule for
Python 3.8. The schedule primarily concerns itself with PEP-sized
items.
- 3.8 Release Manager: Łukasz Langa
- Windows installers: Steve Dower
- Mac installers: Ned Deily
- Documentation: Julien Palard
3.8 will receive bugfix updates approximately every 2 months for
approximately 18 months. Some time after the release of 3.9.0 final,
the ninth and final 3.8 bugfix update was released. After that,
security updates (source only) were released for 5 years until the
release of Python 3.13.0 final.
As of 2024-10-07, 3.8 has reached the
end-of-life phase
of its release cycle. 3.8.20 was the final security release.
The codebase for 3.8 is now frozen and no further updates will be
provided nor issues of any kind will be accepted on the bug tracker.
Actual:
- 3.8 development begins: Monday, 2018-01-29
- 3.8.0 alpha 1: Sunday, 2019-02-03
- 3.8.0 alpha 2: Monday, 2019-02-25
- 3.8.0 alpha 3: Monday, 2019-03-25
- 3.8.0 alpha 4: Monday, 2019-05-06
- 3.8.0 beta 1: Tuesday, 2019-06-04
(No new features beyond this point.)
- 3.8.0 beta 2: Thursday, 2019-07-04
- 3.8.0 beta 3: Monday, 2019-07-29
- 3.8.0 beta 4: Friday, 2019-08-30
- 3.8.0 candidate 1: Tuesday, 2019-10-01
- 3.8.0 final: Monday, 2019-10-14
Actual:
- 3.8.1 candidate 1: Tuesday, 2019-12-10
- 3.8.1 final: Wednesday, 2019-12-18
- 3.8.2 candidate 1: Monday, 2020-02-10
- 3.8.2 candidate 2: Monday, 2020-02-17
- 3.8.2 final: Monday, 2020-02-24
- 3.8.3 candidate 1: Wednesday, 2020-04-29
- 3.8.3 final: Wednesday, 2020-05-13
- 3.8.4 candidate 1: Tuesday, 2020-06-30
- 3.8.4 final: Monday, 2020-07-13
- 3.8.5 final: Monday, 2020-07-20
(security hotfix)
- 3.8.6 candidate 1: Tuesday, 2020-09-08
- 3.8.6 final: Thursday, 2020-09-24
- 3.8.7 candidate 1: Monday, 2020-12-07
- 3.8.7 final: Monday, 2020-12-21
- 3.8.8 candidate 1: Tuesday, 2021-02-16
- 3.8.8 final: Friday, 2021-02-19
- 3.8.9 final: Friday, 2021-04-02
(security hotfix)
- 3.8.10 final: Monday, 2021-05-03
(Final regular bugfix release with binary installers)
Provided irregularly on an “as-needed” basis until October 7th 2024.
- 3.8.11 final: Monday, 2021-06-28
- 3.8.12 final: Monday, 2021-08-30
- 3.8.13 final: Wednesday, 2022-03-16
- 3.8.14 final: Tuesday, 2022-09-06
- 3.8.15 final: Tuesday, 2022-10-11
- 3.8.16 final: Tuesday, 2022-12-06
- 3.8.17 final: Tuesday, 2023-06-06
- 3.8.18 final: Thursday, 2023-08-24
- 3.8.19 final: Tuesday, 2024-03-19
- 3.8.20 final: Friday, 2024-09-06
(final security release)
Some of the notable features of Python 3.8 include:
- PEP 570, Positional-only arguments
- PEP 572, Assignment Expressions
- PEP 574, Pickle protocol 5 with out-of-band data
- PEP 578, Runtime audit hooks
- PEP 587, Python Initialization Configuration
- PEP 590, Vectorcall: a fast calling protocol for CPython
- Typing-related: PEP 591 (Final qualifier), PEP 586 (Literal types),
and PEP 589 (TypedDict)
- Parallel filesystem cache for compiled bytecode
- Debug builds share ABI as release builds
- f-strings support a handy = specifier for debugging
- continue is now legal in finally: blocks
- on Windows, the default asyncio event loop is now
ProactorEventLoop
- on macOS, the spawn start method is now used by default in
multiprocessing
- multiprocessing can now use shared memory segments to avoid
pickling costs between processes
- typed_ast is merged back to CPython
- LOAD_GLOBAL is now 40% faster
- pickle now uses Protocol 4 by default, improving performance
There are many other interesting changes, please consult the
“What’s New” page in the documentation for a full list.
This document has been placed in the public domain.
Contents
Page Source (GitHub)
Source: https://github.com/python/peps/blob/main/peps/pep-0569.rst
Last modified: 2025-11-10 12:03:32 UTC